Quoted By:
>1993 The Death of Fighting Games
No, that is not the name of some new fighting game.
I just visited my local arcade and noticed that they just got in the
second Street Fighter clone game in the last two weeks. This time it is World
Heroes2. The last one was some fighting game from Data East. In fact most of
the space occupied by SF2:HF machines before have now been taken over by the
new clone games.
The popularity of Street Fighter 2 (classic, CE, HF) is definitely dying fast,
if it isn't already almost dead. I guess what I am wondering about is: does
anyone think that this endless series of SF2 updates and its clones will
ever end? I have a feeling that once SF2 is no longer popular, neither will its
clone games retain their popularity. I predict that fighting games will
disappear into the abandoned corners of the arcades as quickly as they became
the dominant arcade game genre.
I guess I am asking this because I for one am sick and tired of all these SF2
ripoffs. The problem is that they are all too similar. It seems like all these
games are trying to be close to SF2 as possible, without resorting to blatant
copying. You get the same fireballs, uppercuts, throws, super-secret move
#XXXX...blah blah blah, and so forth. No originality at all, except in the
character designs. Even then there is a lot of cloning.... the cute female
character, the big wrestler, the kick-boxer,...etc.
It used to be that only SNK was the major SF2 clone maker, but now Data East,
Namco, Kaneko, Sega, and others are all coming out with their own.
The same bothersome trend has migrated into the home video game systems as
well. I dunno, SF2 was great, I loved it and pumped a fortune into those
machines, but enough is enough. I just wish that some creativity will finally
return to video games, both arcade and home.
Enough of my griping....
=-TK
